Captain America: Civil War Ending - 12 Big Implications For Phase 3

8. The Accords Remain In Place - Everyone Is Underground

For fans who expected to see a nice, tight resolution to Civil War, the fact that the Sokovia Accords remain in operation and that the War wasn't won probably came as something of a shock. But it's for the best: Civil War is too big of an idea to restrict to one movie, and the expansion throughout Phase 3 is a much smarter, potentially more rewarding approach.

We now get to see the fall-out of the Accords' philosophies happening in all of the Earth-bound MCU movies, and a more gradual realisation by the public that they probably shouldn't have driven their heroes away with bureaucracy. Tying that into the rise of Thanos' power and his proximity with Earth enriches the narrative context even more.

So far, all we've seen is the question of what happens when there are heroes: what are the costs, collaterally and morally, and how they can be controlled. Now, even more intriguingly, we get to see the other side of the coin: what happens when there aren't any heroes? Obviously Cap and his team will operate from underground, but that fundamentally turns them into cult and anti-heroes. And crucially, we get the next logical step in the narrative, rather than more moral outrage and hand-wringing over the cost to innocents - because that was getting a little tiresome.